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The seminary at which I work recently started working with the Missionary Church's PLI program so that they will be able to offer Bachelor and Master's level degrees to their graduates through WTS. That being said, I received their Spring 2009 newsletter this morning and found the opening paragraph interesting:

Not long ago Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ and the Global
Pastors Network, published the following statistics derived from polling pastors
across denominational lines:

1500 pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.

4000 new churches begin each year, but over 7000 churches will close.

95% of pastors do not regularly pray with their spouses.

90% of pastors said their seminary or Bible school training did only a fair to poor job preparing them for ministry.

90% said ministry was completely different from what they expected.

80% of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.

80% of pastors’ spouses feel their spouse is overworked.

80% of adult children of pastors surveyed have had to seek professional help for depression.

80% of pastors (and 84% of their spouses) feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.

80% of pastors surveyed spend less than 15 minutes in prayer daily.

70% of pastors constantly fight depression.

70% of pastors do not have a close friend, confidant, or mentor.

70% said the only time they spend studying the Word is when they are preparing their sermons.

70% felt God called them to pastoral ministry before entering ministry, but only 50% still felt called after three years in ministry.

50% Are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way to make a living.

50% of pastors’ marriages will end in divorce.

40% (almost) of pastors polled said they have had an extramarital affair since beginning their ministry.

So, either these statistics are completely discouraging or they're comforting to those pastors out there who comfortably fit into these statistics.

I think it raises two questions: 1. What are our seminaries doing wrong and/or missing? and 2. What can our denominational leaders do to address these needs of their pastors?

I personally would reccomend that mentors become a large part of seminary education (something the PLI program seems to emphasize, and the direction I feel WTS it moving towards). I would also suggest that more practical continuing education type events be held (either by denominations, seminaries, or third parties) that address areas such as burnout, balancing family and ministry, maintianing a healthy marriage in ministry, spiritual formation, depression, and specifically for my denomination: how to be a pastor who does it all (i.e. rural churches with little to no support staff). Maybe it's as simple as organizing support groups who reading books together, or creating online communities, I don't know.

And, as always, I will point out that we know little to nothing about how the survey was conducted. Who was surveyed? How many people? What qualified someone to be surveyed? What questions were asked? We all know that the questions themselves can scew the way a person answers, as well as knowing why they're being asked. There are several factors to a survey like this that can make the statistics completely worthless. However, I think there's some truth here regardless.

for what it's worth,
Carrie Jade